The New World

2

Two years later....

Opening my eyes I feel the lack of sleep cave into my eye sockets, my eyes still has heavy as when I closed them. I heard the usual sound of large army trucks rolling through the gravel and chunks of what used to be a nicely paved road crush underneath the large tires. I stood, wandering into the kitchen to see Luke standing with his shirt bunched up in his hand, his exposed chest covered in a thin layer of dust and dirt mixed with sweat, his tan skin exaggerating the crimson leaking from the large slash in his arm. He looked over at me and frowned at the displeased and probably fatigued expression on my face.

"Not sleep well again?" He asked and I gave him a small nod, walking over and sitting on the counter next to where his large body stood, Brett standing in front of him with the dirtied white towel used on every small flesh wound one of us ended up possessing at the end of the day.

"How are you feeling?" Brett pressed. In the community, the government claims it is their right to extract individuals living inside their walls and run tests and experiments on them in spirit of provoking and/or discovering a cure. I had to get nearly two pints of blood drawn, a half a pint of weekly antidote in, and when they came to check on me to see if I was infected, I wasn't. They also particularly favored my blood and Ashton's blood, since it was the rare universal type of O negative. Ever since yesterday, I've been feeling slightly dizzy and light headed, all of the blood re pumping through my body was exhausting it.

I looked over at Brett, his black hair curled with the humidity, thick and standing up messily on its own, the grey tee shirt hanging over his torso and sticking to his bulging muscles, the back of his shirt a shade darker from sweat. He was covered in dirt, but who wasn't. He also had black grease and oil covering his arms and one side of his cheek from working in the factory, his intense jawline highlighted from the shimmer of sweat and dash of oil.

"Ashton went to see if we had enough money in the account for food today," He explained and I nodded. The new government was based on small rations given out at the end of the week, the amount depending on the quality of labor you provided. Ashton worked non-stop at the textile for weaponry all week, while Michael and Brett helped transport things from this community to the next, and Luke stayed here with me. We all took turns working, but Ashton was the one to take on a majority of the responsibility, he was the one we all owed our lives to. Last week, Ashton was transporting more fret on to a loading truck and something happened with an infected, and somehow the bite was blamed on Ashton and they pulled our savings. We weren't angry at him, the government pulls all kinds of stupid shit for excuses to take peoples' money and claim it as their own again. That's just how it's been and I fear that's how it always will be. Brett handed over the wash cloth to me, causing Luke's body to follow as I clean the fresh wound.

"What is this from?" I ask him as he bites down on the inside of his lip, the alcohol stinging the gash.

"I was following Michael out of the walls and someone saw me, so I tried to get away put this giant metal thing sticking out of the wall caught on to my arm. Michael said he would be back by sun down." Luke explained with an agitated scrawl on his face. I nodded, finishing up and grabbing the wrap from Brett's hands to secure around Luke's arm.

"Someone should go find him," I mumble, putting what little supplies we had left into the correct places. Brett and Luke looked at each other,

"I'll go," I offered, walking towards the beat up army boots we all got two years ago when we entered the camp.

"You shouldn't go alone," Luke told me with another expectant look framing his scruffy face, waiting for me to invite him to come along with me. I shrugged, but he stood up once I was in front of the door.